DROPPED THE BALL
ATHLETICS STILL IN THE DARK Members of the Council on University Planning and Budgeting did not take action or votes on what to do about athletics during its meeting Friday.
Eastern’s women’s basketball lost 93-77 to Fort Wayne Friday night.
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“TELL THE TRUTH AND DON’T BE AFRAID” Monday, December 11, 2017 C E L E BRATI NG A CE NT UR Y OF COVE RA GE E S T . 1 915
VOL. 102 | NO. 75 W W W . D A I L Y E A S TE R N N E W S . C O M
Review Committee plans final recommendations By Brooke Schwartz Administration Reporter | @brookesch_wartz With the final recommendations needing to be in by Jan. 15, the Workgroup Review Committee spent its meeting planning how to structure its proposal. The proposal was created from the committee reviewing Vitalization Project Workgroups No. 8 and 9`s recommendations over the last seven weeks. Members agreed to start the final proposal off with recommending college restructuring. These past two weeks, the committee has worked on creating an example of what this would look like which will be included in the proposal. After that, programs that fit into the college restructuring plan will be mentioned, such as the idea of a university college and the center for excellence, a program dedicated purely to encouraging student research. Rebecca Throneburg, a communication disorders and sciences professor, said she wondered if a separate center was necessary for research. “It did say ‘a hub for the undergraduate research department,’ which is nice,” she said. “But in terms of what we already have on campus, and you’re talking about not making things more complicated or more layers of administration, when we may not need it.” She said the Sandra and Jack Pine Honors College supports undergraduate research and the graduate school supports graduate research already. “What’s one more umbrella actually going to do for us,” Throneburg asked. Jeannie Ludlow, coordinator of the women’s studies program, said right now there is a GPA gap in who is recognized for student research. “A gap in the work done with undergraduate research on campus is that most of the awards that come out of the honors college, you have to have a certain GPA to be eligible for that,” Ludlow said. “And what that means is that students who are not in that top tier GPA are not eligible, but in fact we know, there’s a whole lot of research out there, that shows that students who actually are struggling do better with independent research.” Biological sciences professor Billy Hung said he thought a separate research program might attract more students. “I think another attraction to me for this is that there is an identifiable entity that we can point to and use in our promotion and our recruitment effort,” Hung said. The committee decided to include a center for excellence in their final recommendations, with a decision to possibly recommend combin-
BROOKE SCHWARTZ | THE DAILY EASTERN NE WS
Todd Bruns, an institutional repository librarian, and biological sciences professor Billy Hung will begin work on writing a draft of the Workgroup Review Committee’s final proposal, which is due before Jan. 15, after meeting with committee members on Friday.
ing it with the Honors College and the University College. The committee also revisited the program proposals, deciding to recommend adding one or two agriculture majors over time as Eastern slowly gains the ability to hire more faculty members. Stephan Lucas, the interim associate dean of the College of Education and Professional Studies, said the lack of an agriculture program is problematic given where Eastern is located. “Looking longer term, as we’re trying to connect better with our region, it’s just a glaring
oversight that we don’t do anything with agriculture here,” Lucas said. “Long term, looking at it, we’re starting to build faculty again. Targeting this is a possibility.” After reaching out and discussing with each other and the surrounding campus, the committee decided not to recommend any type of shorter schedule, as a campus-wide one would be nearly impossible to implicate and would include minimal benefits. The committee will have two more meetings before its final deadline, the first starting at 3 p.m. Jan. 5 in room 2121 Lumpkin Hall and
the last one being held the following Friday. Lucas said it is important for the committee to not just reiterate what was said in Workgroups No. 8 and 9 but to add something to their recommendations that will help increase enrollment and help improve the campus as a whole. “(The provost) asked us to make a recommendation, not to rehash things,” Lucas said. “I think we need to be distinct.” Brooke Schwartz can be reached at 581-2812 or at bsschwartz@eiu.edu.
Freshmen to share registration date with sophomores Change expected to start Spring 2018 By Koy Wilson Contributing Writer | @DEN_News Beginning in the spring semester, freshmen and sophomores can register for classes in the same week. Previously, sophomore registration opened a week before freshmen registration. The new policy change was suggested by the Committee on Retention Efforts, which is responsible for looking at retention rates for freshman and sophomores and figuring out how they can remove potential barriers to their success.
Registrar Amy Lynch said the new policy was tested last semester and received a lot of positive feedback. “We checked with the advisers and got lots of positive feedback; it gives (advisers) more time to meet with their students,” Lynch said. With the success of the trial, Lynch said the Committee on Retention Efforts decided to make this a permanent change for the fall and summer registrations. The change will give freshmen three weeks to register for classes before the deadline instead of the previous two weeks. Karla Sanders, executive director of the Center for Academic Support and Assessment and a member of the Committee on Retention Efforts, said members of the Committee on Re-
tention Efforts suggested this policy change to also give freshmen more time to go back to talk to their advisors in case problems arise, such as scheduling conflicts. While the policy would benefit freshman, some sophomores think this policy could make this process more inconvenient. Erin Shulk, a sophomore biological sciences major, said she was unhappy with the change. “As the higher year in school, (sophomores) should have an extra week to register early since we have been here longer,” Shulk said. “I would be extremely upset if I tried to register for a class and it was full because freshmen filled it up before I got the chance to sign up for it.” Kate Mushinsky, a sophomore communication disorders and sciences major, shared sim-
ilar feelings and said the extra week for sophomores to sign up made sense. “We have the seniority, so this policy change is great for freshmen; however, (the change) makes life more difficult for sophomores,” Mushinsky said. “The incoming students to EIU will be happy with the change, however, it does not benefit any of the current students at the university.” With spring break interrupting the semester, Sanders said this change also gives an extra week for administration to send out reminders to students regarding registration and when to meet with their advisers. Koy Wilson can be reached at 581-2812 or kmwilson5@eiu.edu.